


mercurial high

by orphean



Category: DC Extended Universe, Zack Snyder’s Justice League (2021)
Genre: Emotions, Infidelity, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-28 16:42:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30142521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphean/pseuds/orphean
Summary: The cave was dark and Bruce was wearing a suit worth more than everything Clark had ever owned, the black around his eyes barely wiped off from a night of watching over his city. He had known Clark would come, he had opened the damn entrance but – he just stood there. The tools fell from his hands and he made a sound, too small for anyone but Clark to hear.‘You really are alive.’
Relationships: Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne
Comments: 14
Kudos: 104





	mercurial high

**Author's Note:**

> i’ve been working on this fic on and off for months upon months and it finally fell into place. mind the tags & let me know if you think I need to add any others. title snagged from T.Swift’s _illicit affairs_ , because obviously.

When it was done and over, Clark returned to Lois. She crashed into his arms and cried, held him close as she told him that she loved him and she had never stopped waiting and she wanted to marry him more than anything else in the world. She kissed him and he kissed her back. The ring on her finger was cold against his face, where she stroked his cheek, still in awe of how he was alive, how he was there. He lost track of how many times she told him that she loved him and how many times he said it back. She was warm and she was kind and he couldn’t imagine a life without her.

Days later, he went to Bruce. He went to Batman. The cave was dark and Bruce was wearing a suit worth more than everything Clark had ever owned, the black around his eyes barely wiped off from a night of watching over his city. He had known Clark would come, he had opened the damn entrance but – he just stood there. The tools fell from his hands and he made a sound, too small for anyone but Clark to hear.

‘You really are alive.’ he said.

And then.

Then.

Then it was Bruce’s hands on his face, Bruce’s mouth on his, Bruce’s breath hopeless and breathless and joyful against his skin, his mouth, his lips. It was Bruce, pressed against Clark. And then, it was Clark, reaching out for him, pulling him back to him, kissing him deep and heavy and almost-drunk. Right then, Clark could imagine nothing worse than not kissing Bruce, than not being close to him. Their movements were just shy of coordinated, nudging each other as they moved with the same goal, tearing at buttons and shirts. Bruce managed first, tugging Clark’s cheap shirt down his shoulders, his arms, over his wrists and hands and down to the floor. (Even then, there was a moment of pause in his mind, a feeling that he should stop and he shouldn’t let Bruce touch him like that but but but—) The buttons clattered where they fell to the floor.

‘It’s you, it’s you, it’s really you and you’re here, you’re not dead. Oh god, you’re still here, you’re really alive.’ Bruce breathed against his skin like a prayer. ‘Come to bed, please Clark, let me take you to bed, please please please.’

Bruce touched him reverentially, carefully, like Clark would dissolve into nothing if he touched too hard. Like Clark was an illusion, a cherished dream that couldn’t come true. Up the stairs, up up up. Bruce had a thumb hooked in one of Clark’s belt loops and a hand wrapped around Clark’s neck, dragging him through the lakehouse to the bedroom. They tumbled onto the bed together, a tangle of limbs. Bruce shucked his shoes off, staining his beautiful sheets, and he was pulling pulling pulling Clark along, keeping him on top of him, moving them both up the bed.

Clark wanted to feel Bruce’s skin against his. He tore at Bruce’s shirt. The buttons ripped. Bruce laughed, a short breath, and kissed Clark again. Bruce didn’t laugh when Clark sat up and made short work of his pants, tugging them off and crawling up Bruce’s body again, eschewing Bruce’s socked feets to kiss him again. Bruce had his hands in his hair and Clark could feel him beneath him, hard and sculpted and perfect, jutting his hips for friction, wanting them closer. Bruce’s eyes were wide when Clark managed to pull away for long enough to shed the rest of his clothes.

‘Jesus, Clark.’ Bruce’s voice was ravaged, sharp edges and trickling molasses.

‘What?’ Clark kissed his way down Bruce’s chest, finally feeling his skin against his, alive and good and right.

‘Come here.’

Bruce beckoned with a finger. Who was Clark to deny him?

It wasn’t until afterwards that Clark realised what he had done. He lay in Bruce’s bed, one foot under the covers, and listened to water rush in the bathroom. Bruce returned, his hair still wet from the shower, towel around his neck. He leaned on the doorframe and watched Clark. Clark closed his eyes.

‘I’m engaged.’

Clark couldn’t see Bruce’s face, but he could hear him: how he didn’t move; how he exhaled; how his heart beat fast, then slow. How was Bruce’s heart so familiar to him? How could he hear every cadence and dip and understand it perfectly? Just like Lois’. He didn’t even _know_ Bruce, not really.

‘I see.’

Clark opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. How could he have forgotten Lois? How could Bruce have touched him and with that one touch, ravage everything that Clark knew, Clark took for granted? She had always been his guiding light, his north star. All at sea, Bruce was the lighthouse beckoning him to safety. Bruce looked at him with his cold eyes.

‘You should take a shower, then, and wash me off you.’

He couldn’t say why he did it. 

Clark got off the bed but didn’t step into the bathroom. He stopped at the doorway and reached out for Bruce. He undid the knot of Bruce’s dressing gown. Clark moved closer and kissed, tasted. Bruce tipped his head against the doorframe and exposed his throat, the soft skin under his jaw. He let Clark kiss him, touch him, roam his teeth all over his neck and bite down on that too-human skin, bruising him, marking him. Maybe (Clark told himself, tried to convince himself) something had gone wrong when he came back to life. Maybe he just needed to work it out of his system. Maybe he wasn’t that bad.

Clark came with his face buried in the crook of Bruce’s neck, Bruce’s fingers in his hair. He stroked through the curls, scratching behind his ears like Clark was a pet, a cat that needed to be consoled.

‘Will you tell her?’

Clark imagined Lois’ face, wide-eyed and hurt.

‘I can’t do that to her.’

‘So you’ll marry her?’ Bruce’s fingers were heavy against his scalp.

‘I love her.’ Clark said and he did, he loved Lois, he loved Lois more than life itself, but the words felt wrong in his mouth.

‘Go.’ Bruce removed his hand and leaned back against the doorframe. ‘Please go.’

He should go. Bruce told him to go. It would be right to go. He loved Lois and he should go.

Clark kneeled before Bruce, resting his forehead against his strong thigh. He smelled of high-end beauty products and Clark. Bruce’s hand came back, gently carding through his hair and not pulling him away when Clark moved up, lapping his tongue over the jut of his hip bone. Clark looked up at him. Bruce’s eyes were onyx, hard and unbreakable. When Clark first wrapped his mouth around Bruce he gasped, a mournful choked sound. His fingers gripped hard on Clark’s curls.

When Clark pulled back, swallowing and gazing up at Bruce, Bruce’s eyes were sad, his face closed off.

‘Go.’ He said again.

This time, Clark obeyed.

* * *

The next time Clark saw him, Bruce didn’t wear a tie and had the top buttons of his dress shirt undone. Clark could glimpse the marks on his neck. He couldn’t tell if Bruce was wearing them as a badge of honour or a taunt. He didn’t know how to talk to Bruce about this, if they should acknowledge the mistake, if Clark should confess it had been all he had been thinking about since he had left the lakehouse. So he said nothing and stared at his childhood home. He didn’t know what to say, so he thanked Bruce. He shook it off the way he shook off everything. Bruce put his hand on Clark’s shoulder and Clark’s body remembered his touch, yearned for more. No. No more.

‘Congratulations, by the way,’ Bruce said and kept his hand on Clark’s shoulders as they walked to the house.

In the kitchen, Lois kissed him with too-soft lips.


End file.
